


Helpless

by Clowns_or_Midgets



Series: The Sound Of Silence [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aphasia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Mute Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 18:24:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10196216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clowns_or_Midgets/pseuds/Clowns_or_Midgets
Summary: Sam is left helpless in the face of a stranger's suffering.





	

**_Helpless_ **

 

Sam started his runs a couple months after he got out of the hospital. He would set out, morning and evening, from Bobby’s place and run the old roads that edged Sioux Falls. He ran for exercise, he ran for freedom, he ran for sanity. When he was running, he was in control. There was no one watching him as if ready to dive in front of him to protect him at a moment’s notice the way there was the rest of the time. No one was monitoring his expression to gauge his level of depression. No one was trying to make sense of what he was saying without words. He could choose his speed, his direction; he could control it all. He needed that in his life, especially that day, as John was back for one of his visits.

When it was just Sam, Dean and Bobby, they rubbed along well enough. Sam could get on with his silent life, spending his time reading Bobby’s library, cooking meals on occasion and helping Bobby research cases for other hunters. While he did that, Dean helped out in the yard, stripping junkers for parts and doing the occasion repair job for one of Bobby’s customers. It wasn’t a great life, but it was bearable. But when John came, Sam felt the weight of his father’s presence at all times. It was like John’s gaze physically pinned him. He couldn’t handle Sam’s limitations like Dean could. Dean accepted it, though Sam knew he hated it, as a part of him. John could only see what Sam had been before and what he had lost. Sam understood it, he felt the same pang for what he’d once had, but he knew he was the same person he’d always been, just without a voice. John didn’t seem to have the same understanding.

So he ran. He tied on his sneakers and set off, and felt the freedom that was being alone.

He was running along the verge beside the little traveled Meyer Road, a long expanse of blacktop bordered by fields, just reaching the speeds that made his heart race and him feel like he was flying when he saw the sunlight reflect off of the bumper of a car on the horizon. He squinted and saw that it was a light blue—not the sleek black of the Impala, so it wasn’t Dean coming looking for him as had happened a couple times. Relieved, Sam pushed himself on, feeling the rhythmic thuds of his feet hitting the grass, and then his heart leapt as he heard the pop of a tire blowout and then the squeal of brakes. The car veered across the lane to the opposite side and the rear began to swing around. In slow motion Sam saw the car collide with a telegraph pole and heard the sickening crash.

He sprinted forward, terrified of what he was going to find.

The car was a wreck. The driver’s side was crushed inward against the pole and the windscreen was spider-webbed with cracks. There was one passenger, an unconscious woman that looked to be in her thirties; it was hard to tell, as there was blood running down her face from a cut on her right temple. Sam guessed she’d hit the window on collision. The airbags had deployed and were holding her half upright.

Sam tried the passenger door, but the frame must have warped as he couldn’t open it. Groaning, he climbed onto the still hot hood and kicked at the corner of the broken windshield. A small hole appeared as the layered glass curled inward. He bent and heaved on it, unmindful of the cuts forming on his hands. He knew he needed to get in to the woman. The glass slowly peeled from the frame, and Sam dragged it back until he had a space large enough for him to get through.

His shirt rode up as he squeezed through, and cuts formed on his sides and chest. He didn’t notice the pain. When his hips were through, he slid into the shotgun seat face first. Careful not to jostle the woman, he rearranged himself so he could reach her. The airbags were starting to deflate, and the woman was being held up by the seatbelt. Exceptionally carefully, Sam eased her head back to lean against the headrest, making sure to support her neck.

Sam looked her up and down, pushing back the flaccid airbag and sucking in a breath. A piece of plastic had been broken off of the control panel and was imbedded in her left leg. Sam knew from the positioning that it was either very close to or in the femoral artery.

He pulled off his shirt and pressed it hard around the piece of panel, trying to hold in as much blood as he could with one hand, and with the other he reached for his phone and started dialing 911 before he realized the problem. He couldn’t call an ambulance as no one would be able to understand a word he was saying. If he tried, they would think he was a crank call.

He cursed internally and shook his head jerkily, thinking through the problem. The woman needed an ambulance. She needed him to stay, so he couldn’t go for help. He needed help to come to him.

He dialed the number for the only person he thought had even a chance of helping him.

“Sammy?” Dean sounded confused, understandably so; why would someone who couldn’t talk call him.

“Dean, I need help. There’s been an accident and a woman’s really hurt.”

“Sam, calm down. I can’t understand you. Breathe, okay?”

An idea occurred, and Sam hung up the phone then lifted it and opened the camera. He took three pictures, one of the woman’s leg, another of her face, and a third of the view out of the window—a distant blue barn and farmhouse. He quickly sent them off to Dean and sent up a quick prayer that Bobby would recognize the area.

The woman began to stir then, and a moan of pain escaped her. As relieved as he was to see her conscious, Sam knew things had just got a lot more complicated as she was going to be harder to keep still.

He was right. Even before her eyes were all the way open, she was reaching for her leg.

“No!” Sam said firmly, having no idea what word had actually left his mouth. “You have to stay still.”

“What?” she slurred.

Sam closed his eyes, frustration rising within him. He had never cursed his inability to talk so much. This woman needed comfort and he couldn’t give it. The best he could do was shush her gently and hold her hands against his chest, hoping she could feel the steady beat of his heart and be comforted even a little.

The woman began to cry.

xXx

John was sitting on Bobby’s couch, nursing a coffee and wondering how much longer Sam would be gone. He was leaving later that day and he wanted to spend a little more time with his sons before he did. Sam hadn’t been receptive to the idea so far in the three days John had been there. Sam seemed happier alone.

He was pulled out of his thoughts then by the sound of Dean’s phone ringing. “Sammy?” Dean said, bewildered.

John was on his feet in a moment and at his son’s side. For a moment, a blissful moment, he thought Sam had found his words again—why else would he be calling—but then Dean spoke and shattered his hopes.

“Sam, calm down. I can’t understand you. Breathe, okay?”

“What’s he saying?” Bobby hissed.

Dean didn’t answer; not that any answer would have made sense. “Sam? Sammy? Dammit.”

“What?” John demanded.

“I don’t know,” Dean said angrily. “It was all gibberish. He was panicking though, I could tell.” He crossed to the laptop and pulled up a webpage. His fingers flew over the keys, and then he cursed. “His GPS is offline.” He picked up his phone again, but just then it beeped with incoming messages.

John peered over his shoulder as he opened them and scrolled through the displayed images. Something awful had happened. There was a picture of a leg with a piece of plastic sticking out of it, soaked in blood. For a moment, John felt sick at the thought of it being Sam’s leg, his blood, but then sense caught up to him—it was too thin, and it was encased in pale blue denim, not Sam’s dark pants. The second picture was an unfamiliar woman with a blood coated face. The third was a distant farmhouse and blue barn.

“Bobby!” Dean snapped. “You know this place?”

Bobby closed his eyes for a moment and his brow furrowed. “Yes!” he said, suddenly triumphant. “It’s the Cleaver place on Meyer Road.

John raced for the door, grabbing up the Impala keys from the table on the way. He threw himself in behind the wheel and slapped his hand on the steering wheel, shouting, “Come on, Dean!”

Dean had the phone pressed to his ear as he slid into the shotgun seat. “There’s been an accident on Meyer Road, Sioux Falls,” he said. “At least one person has serious injuries.”

Please, God, let it just be one person, John thought. Don’t let Sam be hurt, too.

He ended the call and redialed.

“Sammy?” John asked.

Dean nodded as he pressed the phone to his ear. “Dammit, Sam, answer,” he muttered.

“He’s busy,” John reminded him. “He’s got to help her.”

“I know,” Dean said bitterly. “I want him to know we’re coming, though.”

“He’ll know,” John said confidently. “He always knows.”

xXx

Sam heard the phone ring again, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go of the woman’s hands to answer. She was quiet and her gaze sluggish now as the blood loss affected her. She looked at Sam and then down at her leg. “Am I dying?” she asked drowsily.

Sam shook his head jerkily, wishing he could say the word.

“I feel like I am.”

Sam pushed her hands harder against his chest.

“It doesn’t really hurt now.”

Sam closed his eyes for a moment and a tear broke through his control. He turned his head away so she wouldn’t see.

She drew a shaky breath and Sam turned back to her.

“I’m not scared,” she said. “Make sure they know I wasn’t scared, and it didn’t hurt.”

“No!” Sam said, his voice choked as the unknown word ripped from him.

She frowned, possibly trying to make sense of whatever he’d said.

“Not scared,” she said again, and then looked into his eyes. “Lie to them.”

Another tear slipped from Sam and he nodded. He would not need to lie, as she wasn’t going to die, but he wanted her to believe he would.

“Thank you,” she said with a small smile, then the pressure of her hands against his chest lessened and her eyes slid closed. Sam dropped her hands and pressed down harder on the shirt around the wound. Her head dropped to the side and her breaths slowed.

“No!” Sam shouted. “Wake up!”

She didn’t rouse, and Sam began to cry in earnest. He was alone with this dying woman, and he couldn’t speak a sensible word.

That was when he heard the rumble of a familiar engine approaching.

xXx

“There he is!” Dean shouted, seeing the awkwardly positioned car at the end of the road.

John nodded and pushed the engine harder. Dean willed him on, needing to get to his brother.

When they were a few yards away, John slammed on the brakes and Dean practically fell out of the car. He could see Sam in the car beside the woman. His eyes were on Dean though and Dean didn’t think he had ever looked more desperate or helpless.

“It’s okay, Sammy,” he shouted. “We’re here.”

Sam had obviously climbed into the car by the gap in the windshield but there was no room for Dean to get in with him, so he climbed onto the hood, and with his father’s help, pulled the glass back all the way so he could reach the woman. He lay over the hood and looked inside.

Sam’s hands were shaking as they pressed down on his blood-soaked shirt on the woman’s leg so hard that his knuckles were white. She was pale and perfectly still, and though Dean knew what that meant, he didn’t want to accept it anymore than Sam seemed to.

John had no such compunction. He leaned around the curled back windshield and reached his fingers toward the woman’s throat. Sam cried out inarticulately and tried to brush his father’s hand aside, but John was relentless. He pressed his fingers against her neck and spoke softly, “She’s gone.”

Sam shook his head jerkily, mouthing words but no sound escaping him.

“I’m sorry, son,” John said. “You can let go now.”

Sam squeezed his eyes shut and tears streamed down his cheeks.

Tears choking his own voice, Dean said. “Let go, Sammy. It’s okay.”

Sam didn’t respond. Dean scooted himself forward, scraping his chest, until he could reach Sam. He gripped the back of his neck and squeezed it. “You did your best!” he said forcefully.

Sam shook his head again.

“Yes!” Dean said. “You did. There was no chance for her, Sam. At least…” His voice broke. “At least she wasn’t alone.”

In the distance the warble of sirens could be heard.


End file.
